Conventional systems for controlling lighting in homes and other buildings suffer from many drawbacks. One such drawback is that such systems rely on conventional lighting technologies, such as incandescent bulbs and fluorescent bulbs. Such lamps are limited in many respects. For example, such lamps typically do not offer long life or high energy efficiency. Further, such lamps offer only a limited selection of colors, and what colors are offered are typically not well specified. Further still, the color or light output of such lamps typically changes or degrades over time as the lamp ages. Additionally, after such lamps are installed in a particular location in a home or other building, a user must return to the location and physically inspect the lamp to learn its operational condition. In buildings having a large number of lamps, such inspections can become tedious.
Another drawback of conventional systems is that such systems typically have inflexible controls. For example, the controls in such systems in many instances are limited to simple on-off switches, or manually controlled dimming switches. Such switches provide only limited control over lamps. Further, the relationships between conventional switches and the lamps each switch controls are not readily apparent. Thus, a user must experiment with multiple switches before determining which switch controls the lamp he or she wants to affect. Another issue with conventional switches is that they typically do not provide highly granular control. Thus, multiple lamps may be controlled by a single switch, thereby further limiting a user's control choices. Conversely, if a user wants highly centralized control, he or she may be frustrated that by utilizing a particular switch he or she can only control all of the lights in a room, for example, instead of all of the lights in a home or other building. Thus, conventional switches can frustrate user expectations in multiples ways.
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.